Preschoolers, Preteens Quit Thumbsucking With Help from Colorful, Low-Cost Bracelet

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Med. et.al
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PR NEWSWIRE

Forums

CHARLOTTE, N.C., Sept. 30, 1996 -- A new way to help children 5 through 12 stop thumbsucking is gaining ground in the nation's dental offices, one that is safe, easy and involves no fear or discomfort for the child.

It's called T-Guard(TM), a thumb cover of FDA-approved, medical-grade material, attached by a parent to a child's wrist using a colorful, lock-band bracelet.

T-Guard doesn't keep children from putting their thumbs in their mouths, but it makes it impossible for their lips to form the tight seal around the thumb that generates the soothing suction sensation to which children are drawn.

While child health experts don't consider thumbsucking a problem in very young children carried over into preschool and grade school it can hinder social development and cause severe dental problems affecting the child's physical health and appearance.

For pediatric dentists, long dissatisfied with putting children through extensive fittings and impressions necessary to create preventive intraoral devices, T-Guard is a welcome alternative. It often eliminates thumbsucking in a few weeks, as compared to the six months or more typical of cemented mouth appliances.

"Parents often ask me to help an older child stop thumbsucking," said Dr. Martha Dawson, a Sandston, Virginia pediatric dentist who has used T-Guard for eight months. "Before T-Guard, the best I could offer was a cemented mouth appliance, which the child wears 24 hours daily for many months. With T-Guard, I send a kit home, the child wears the bracelet at bedtime or whenever sucking is most tempting, and there is an immediate solution to the problem.

Dr. Kyle Jackson, a Dayton, Ohio pediatric dentist, discovered T-Guard last year and first used it to help his 6-year-old break her thumbsucking habit. It stopped completely in three weeks."

Dentists surveyed by Med et.al., the company that created T-Guard, believe children like the product because it's fun to wear and, since it's rarely worn all the time, no one in their peer group necessarily has to know about it.

The dentists' impressions are borne out in independent testing by Clinical Research Associates, a dental research organization, which found T-Guard, 90% successful in a test group, to be a safe, kind, low-cost way to help children overcome thumbsucking.

For more information about T-Guard, contact your dentist, or call 1-800-964-5704.

Contact: Eugene Zilber of Med et.al., 704-573-0424